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Movie Review – Inayathalam

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SYNOPSIS: A team of cybercrime officials are left scratching their heads after an untraceable website starts streaming murders live on the internet.
REVIEW: Just a week ago, there was Lens, talking about the dark side of the internet, and making us realise how it feeds our voyeuristic impulses. Inayathalam, too, conveys the same message, but with a different setting — sex is replaced with murder here. But there the comparison ends. For the two films are polar opposites when it comes to storytelling and filmmaking. What was admirable there feels abominable here.

The plot involves an anonymous website streaming murders live. And in a fiendishly clever way, the brain behind these crimes commits them in such a way by feeding off the voyeuristic needs of the public. The cybercrime officers handling the case, Ganesh (Ganesh Venkatram), Helen (Shwetha Menon) and Ganapathy (Erode Mahesh), are at their wits end, as the criminal is sophisticated enough to not leave any clues in the digital world. And even as these cops try their best, one among them is captured. Who is committing these murders, and why?

The only thing that Inayathalam has going for it is intent. It wants to talk about an issue that has very little awareness. But as a film, it is exactly the opposite of what it wants to be. More than a thriller, this feels like an unintentional comedy because of an underdeveloped script and poor direction. The latter, in fact, puts the actors in poor light because their performances resemble pantomime. And amidst all this farce, there is the score by Arrol Corelli, a Mysskin find, which exists in a different dimension. It tries hard — really hard — to make us care about what is happening onscreen, only to feel so out of place. But this is the kind of film that cannot be salvaged.